GALLERY: Honored Matres

Murbella soon learns the "missing link" in the origin of the Matres by exploring their past through Other Memory; initially a hybrid group of Bene Gesserit and Fish Speakers, they had developed their violent tendencies with their third addition: awakened Tleilaxu females. The best kept secret of the Tleilaxu — that their famed axlotl tanks are in fact their race's females kept in a vegetative state — had been laid bare before the matriarchal alliance, and their wrath had known no bounds. Attacking every Tleilaxu planet on their way out of the galaxy, the martial prowess of both the Fish Speakers and the Bene Gesserit had ensured their victory. They had managed to liberate a number of the axlotl tanks, and their next task had been to rehabilitate the brain-dead women. The fledgling order had enjoyed a modicum of success, and eventually the Tleilaxu females, angry at their males for treating them in such a way, had vowed revenge. Thus, when the Honored Matres burst upon the universe again, they take special care to lay waste to every extant Tleilaxu world (though the Matres of later generations cannot remember the origin of their own hatred for the Tleilaxu). This anger leads to the name of the order, "Honored Matres", or Honored Mothers.

The Honored Matres are a fictional matriarchal organization in Frank Herbert 's science fiction Dune universe . They are described as an aggressive cult obsessed with power, violence, and sexual domination. For this reason they are often described as "whores", especially by their enemies, the Bene Gesserit .